Overseas born players to play Test cricket for England

[brod]

Look how many foreigners have played for them. This is only going back 30 years. There's way more than this and 13 of this list are from Wales, Scotland or Ireland

South Africans
Tony Greig
Allan Lamb
Ian Greig
Chris Smith
Robin Smith
Kevin Pietersen
Andrew Strauss

West Indians
Roland Butcher
Monte Lynch
Gladstone Small
"Daffy" DeFreitas
Norman Cowans
Wilfred Slack
Devon Malcolm
Neil Williams
Chris Lewis
Joey Benjamin

Australia
Jason Gallian
Ben Holioake
Adam Holioake
Tim Ambrose

Zimbabwe
Paul Parker
Graeme Hick
Phil Edmonds

New Zealand
Andy Caddick

India
Bob Woolmer
Robin Jackman
Vikram Solanki
Minal Patel
Nasser Hussain

Pakistan
Usman Afzaal
Owais Shah

Wales
Tony Lewis
Pat Pocock
Greg Thomas
Steve Watkin
Hugh Morris
Robert Croft
Simon Jones

Ireland
Ed Joyce

Northern Ireland
Martin McCague

Scotland
Mike Denness
Gavin Hamilton
Peter Such
Dougie Brown

Hong Kong
Dermot Reeve

Germany
Paul Terry

Kenya
Derek Pringle
Jamie Dalrymple

Zambia
Neal Radford

Papua New Guinea
Geraint Jones

[brod]

A reply I saw on another forum that I think is pretty close to my thoughts:

85% of people in that list have parents who were born in England.

The Wales players you listed is embarassing!! It's the ENGLAND & WALES Cricket Team.

The Scottish players are there because Scotland DOESN'T HAVE a Test side, so why should good players miss out from playing Test Cricket.

A lot of these players were born in a different country but have lived nearly all there lives in England. Owais Shah & Andrew Strauss for a quick example.

A lot of South African players because of the ban.

There's only 1 or 2 players that England have actually NICKED from other countries. 99% of those players would consider themselves English.

[Pottsy]

Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland...who cares, they're all Poms.

The majority of players on the list would consider themselves English?? Consider what my statement above stirs in the nations mentioned. It may be the England and Wales Cricket Board (acronym - ECB ), but I don't hear them singing En-g-land En-g-land En-g-land and Wales....

The fact is that a fair number amount of players for England are not English, or not originally so. Whether this is a good or bad thing is up for debate. The defensive tone in the reply you found does indicate the poster might see it as a bad thing.

I suppose that's fair enough though. If I knew my country was riding on the coat tails of a bunch of other nations to gain reflected glory for itself I'd probably get defensive myself. But then again, England's been doing that for centuries...

[Dogwatcher]

Duleepsinhji
Ranjitsinjhi

[Dogwatcher]

Douglas Jardine
Colin Cowdrey

[Brucetiki]

Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland...who cares, they're all Poms.

Try calling someone from Ireland (or parts of Northern Ireland) a pom and see if you survive

[bulldogproud2]

Although there have been quite a few overseas-born players play for England, there have also been quite a few play for Australia. Almost all of these were from England.
Cheers

[bulldogproud2]

Some that spring to mind:

ENGLAND : Charles Bannerman, John Hodges, Tom Kendall, William Midwinter, Percy McDonnell, William Cooper, Henry Musgrove, Hanson Carter, Tony Dell and Andrew Symonds.
SCOTLAND : Archie Jackson.
IRELAND : Tom Horan, Tom Kelly.
SOUTH AFRICA: Kepler Wessels.
NEW ZEALAND : Tom Groube, Clarrie Grimmett and Brendon Julian.
INDIA : Bransby Cooper and Rex Sellers.
SRI LANKA : Dav Whatmore.

Cheers.

[The Dark Knight]

Some that spring to mind:

ENGLAND : Charles Bannerman, John Hodges, Tom Kendall, William Midwinter, Percy McDonnell, William Cooper, Henry Musgrove, Hanson Carter, Tony Dell and Andrew Symonds.
SCOTLAND : Archie Jackson.
IRELAND : Tom Horan, Tom Kelly.
SOUTH AFRICA: Kepler Wessels.
NEW ZEALAND : Tom Groube, Clarrie Grimmett and Brendon Julian.
INDIA : Bransby Cooper and Rex Sellers.
SRI LANKA : Dav Whatmore.

Cheers.

There's a fair few in that list I've never heard of...

[Dogwatcher]

Shame on you.

[GWW]

Would it be fair to say that a few on the England list were eligible to play for that country due to a parent having been born there, whereas those on the (much smaller) Australian list moved to the country at a young age and became naturalised (eg. Julian, Symonds, Whatmore, all of whom have an Australian accent; as opposed to Smith, Lamb, Greig, Hick and Pietersen who don't sound particularly English).

The only one on the Australian list who i wouldn't think of as being particularly "Australian" would be Kepler Wessells.

[Pottsy]

Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland...who cares, they're all Poms.

Try calling someone from Ireland (or parts of Northern Ireland) a pom and see if you survive

Exactly the point I was trying to make.

[Rik E Boy]

West Indians
Roland Butcher
Monte Lynch
Gladstone Small
"Daffy" DeFreitas
Norman Cowans
Wilfred Slack
Devon Malcolm
Neil Williams
Chris Lewis
Joey Benjamin

Australia
Jason Gallian
Ben Holioake
Adam Holioake
Tim Ambrose
-Craig White?
-Mark McGague (sp?)
-Allan Mallally?

And they would have traded all of the above for Cuthbert Greenidge and Andrew Symons.

regards,

REB

[Rik E Boy]

Some that spring to mind:

ENGLAND : Charles Bannerman, John Hodges, Tom Kendall, William Midwinter, Percy McDonnell, William Cooper, Henry Musgrove, Hanson Carter, Tony Dell and Andrew Symonds.
SCOTLAND : Archie Jackson.
IRELAND : Tom Horan, Tom Kelly.
SOUTH AFRICA: Kepler Wessels.
NEW ZEALAND : Tom Groube, Clarrie Grimmett and Brendon Julian.
INDIA : Bransby Cooper and Rex Sellers.
SRI LANKA : Dav Whatmore.

Cheers.

Was Billy Midwinter born in England? He played test cricket for both Australia and England and was referred to in an autobiography of WG Grace that read as a 'native Australian' (not to be confused with what they called natives in those days). WG even kidnapped Midwinter to play for Gloucester at one stage in a famous incident.

regards,

REB

[Rik E Boy]

BTW, Clarrie Grimmett the best of those players listed. Bill O'Rielly once said that they could have won the Ashes without Bradman but would have been no chance without Grimmett. 1938 tour I think it was, although O'Rielly and The Don were hardly the best of mates.

regards,

REB

[bulldogproud2]

Yes, huge fights between Bill and Don. Blame it on Bill being one of us Micks *grins*
Billy Midwinter was born in
St Briavels, Gloucestershire, England
on June 19 1851.

Cheers

[brod]

Some that spring to mind:

ENGLAND : Charles Bannerman, John Hodges, Tom Kendall, William Midwinter, Percy McDonnell, William Cooper, Henry Musgrove, Hanson Carter, Tony Dell and Andrew Symonds.
SCOTLAND : Archie Jackson.
IRELAND : Tom Horan, Tom Kelly.
SOUTH AFRICA: Kepler Wessels.
NEW ZEALAND : Tom Groube, Clarrie Grimmett and Brendon Julian.
INDIA : Bransby Cooper and Rex Sellers.
SRI LANKA : Dav Whatmore.

Cheers.

20 in total and 6 of those played in the first Test in 1877

[bulldogproud2]

Brod,
To be fair, it must be noted that the vast majority of those you named who were born overseas and played for England were either:
from the British Isles so playing for England was their way of being able to play test cricket; or
From Southern Africa during the apartheid ban; or,
moved to England whilst they were children.

Also, the list of overseas players who played for Australia was not exhaustive, just those that sprang to mind immediately.

Cheers

[sherminator]

As an Aussie who spent lived in England between 2000-2007, I have had this debate with Poms about the make-up of their team numerous times (always in a light-hearted way).

A favourite quote from a Pommie mate ... 'If a dog is born in a stable ... it doesn't make it a horse'

I guess if English parents living abroad give birth to a son, they should be able to play for England. I have a bit of an issue with someone like KP, who was brought up and developed in the South African system, played first-class cricket in SA, then decided he had a better chance of playing test cricket for England so cited the then 'quota system' as his reason for leaving. If he had stuck with it in SA, there is no doubt he would have made it as a South African cricketer.

I will always remember that 2005 Ashes series. Mark Nicholas was interviewing English players on the ground at the Oval. He asked KP what it was like to win the Ashes. He answered that he always dreamed of playing and winning the Ashes ... ridiculous considering 5 years earlier he was a South African still wanting to play for South Africa.

[Back Pocket Rocket]

Martin McCague.